Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to vehicle systems and networks, such as railway systems including trains travelling in a track or rail network, and in particular to data management systems and methods for use in connection with one or more target devices, such as train event recording systems and associated devices, used on or in connection with one or more locomotives or railcars of a train.
Description of Related Art
Vehicle systems and networks exist throughout the world; and, at any point in time, a multitude of vehicles, such as cars, trucks, buses, trains, and the like, are travelling throughout the system and network. Many of these vehicles are equipped with various target devices that measure, determine, and/or track certain conditions, parameters, operational states, physical data or information, and the like. For example, a train may include an event recorder and/or other components or devices that measure, determine, and/or track certain conditions or states of the equipment or components of the train, such as pressure, temperature, speed, operational states, and the like. These devices are normally attached to or associated with one or more of the locomotives of a train. Further, in another example, such event recorders and/or other components or devices are attached to or associated with a truck, a bus, or other vehicle where the conditions and states of certain pieces of equipment are or should be tracked.
With respect to railway systems, and as is known, train event recorders and recording systems receive and store train event data from a train management system and/or other components and systems of a locomotive, railcar, track network, wayside equipment, end-of-train unit, head-of-train device unit, and the like. Train event recording systems are designed to be crash-worthy and include crash-resistant housings to preserve the recorded train event data in the event of a crash, derailment, or other type of accident. The train event data may include sensitive information meant only for intended or otherwise authorized recipients. Train event recorders and recording systems may provide download or transfer options to facilitate the transfer of train event data to one or more external storage devices.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) requires train event recording systems to comply with basic specifications, although the capabilities of these systems can be enhanced beyond these requirements. To be in compliance, all leading locomotives of trains in the United States that travel faster than 30 miles per hour on a United States rail network must have crash-worthy event recording systems that record certain safety-critical events needed for investigating an accident.
Train event recording systems may monitor a variety of analog and digital outputs from the train management computer, directly from certain target devices that output data and information, and/or from other equipment and sources. The recorded train event data can be used to view and analyze specific criteria of the train event data after it is downloaded by a computer. Various existing train event recording systems and train management systems are shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,239,092 to Plante et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,769,509 to Gaughan et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,263,475 to Hawthorne et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,700 to Bezos et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,065,321 to Bezos et al., and U.S. Publication No. 2007/0219686 to Plante.